Vaping equally harmful as smoking: Health experts

New Delhi: The growing use of e-cigarettes or ENDS (Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems), also known as vaping devices, has become a cause of great concern globally as well as in India.

The perception that e-cigarettes are safe, less harmful than burned tobacco cigarettes and nicotine free has been challenged by experts and organisations like the WHO. Also, it has been disproved that e-cigarettes replace smoking and instead complement cigarette smoking.

Claims of companies manufacturing e-cigarettes that it is harmless are being questioned.

According to a health expert, there is no scientific evidence that e-cigarettes are less harmful. E-cigarette emissions typically contain nicotine and other toxic substances that are harmful to both users, and non-users who are exposed to the aerosols.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is conducting an additional review of e-cigarettes maker, JUUL's application in the US and is yet to decide.

The FDA in June 2022 also announced that JUUL's applications "lacked sufficient evidence regarding the toxicological profile of the products to demonstrate that marketing of the products would be appropriate for the protection of the public health."

The agency has also recently noted that scientific issues unique to its application warrant additional review and stated that the company still cannot legally market or sell its products.

Presently e-cigarettes are banned in more than 45 countries such as Singapore, Japan, Thailand, Brazil, Argentina. Claims made by the manufacturers of e-cigarettes that they are "reduced harm alternatives" are not proven by any independent scientific studies.

The WHO says that evidence on the use of ENDS as a smoking cessation aid is inconclusive.

They are in fact gateways to smoking and according to a WHO's recent report, children and adolescents who use ENDS, even experimentally, are more than twice as likely to later use cigarettes. The same study says that in some countries, up to 70 per cent of adult ENDS users also currently smoke cigarettes.

E-cigarettes complement rather than replaces smoking. JUUL and e-cigarettes vowed to transform smoking but instead sparked a new generation of teenage nicotine addicts. There also have been instances of physical harm such as the incident wherein an e-cigarette exploded in a teenager's mouth in Utah shattering his jaw and teeth.

E-cigarettes have become a fashion statement and a fashion accessory as they are marketed to the youth in different flavours, sizes and shapes. Teenagers and young people are increasingly taking up vaping and are putting their health at great risk.

The National Youth Tobacco Survey, 2022 in America found that 2.5 million adolescents use e-cigarettes, with 27.6 per cent of adolescents using the devices daily compared to 2.1 million and 24.7 per cent in 2021.

The WHO has listed the harmful effects of e-cigarettes, from hampering brain development in children and adolescents to impacting the foetus in pregnant women. The long-term deleterious impact on brain development can potentially lead to learning and anxiety disorders.

In May 2019, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) released a White Paper where it noted that e-cigarettes pose a risk to the foetus, infant, and child brain development.

The WHO has also pointed out that some evidence suggests that never-smoker minors who use e-cigarettes can double their chance of starting to smoke tobacco cigarettes later in life. E-cigarettes have also been linked to physical injuries, including burns from explosions or malfunctions, when the products are of sub-standard quality or are tampered with by users.

Accidental exposure of children to ENDS e-liquids poses serious risks as devices may leak, or children may swallow the poisonous e-liquid.